Last night the wife and I caught Sufjan Stevens at the Paramount Theater in Austin.
The opening band was My Brightest Diamond (essentially Shara Worden from Sufjan's band). I have her new album,
Bring Me the Workhorse and I've enjoyed it. We were a bit late so I missed my fave from the album,
Something of an End. What we saw of her was enjoyable though...especially the title track from the album. She has a great voice.
After that Sufjan's band came out in pieces. First, the 8 members of the strings section came out. Then the 3 horns and the guitarist/bassist, drummer and Shara (who plays several different instruments and background vox). All 14 members of the band were wearing matching outfits with big butterfly wings attached. They started up a big instrumental, somewhat droning thing typical of the instrumental breaks on the albums. Then Sufjan comes out wearing a big set of hawk wings and they finish up. He says that he's the "Majestic Showbird and this is the Chinese Butterfly Brigade." Anyway...then they get started. It was awesome. They played a variety of songs off of Seven Swans, Michigan, Illinoise and The Avalanche. Highlights for me were
The Predatory wasp of the Palisades...,
Seven Swans and of course
Chicago which they performed as an encore.
I was somewhat disappointed with their performance of
Casimir Pulaski Day for several reasons - banjo was muddy, Sufjan's voice cracked right in the middle and most of all, the bassist/guitarist's ham-fisted pounding of the piano on his small piano part. Maybe this will smooth out further into the tour...this was the 4th show of the tour.
Other than that it was a sublime performance and Sufjan's voice is generally just as good in person as on the albums. There were lots of songs I would have liked to have heard that were not played but the main ones were probably
Concerning a UFO Sighting Near Highland Illinois,
Romulus,
They are Night Zombies...
As they played all songs a digital projector played various fitting things on a screen behind the performers. These images were all very "Sufjan" with a lot of film that looked like vintage video footage of various things.
Overall this was absolutely an incredible concert in a good, old venue and it was most definitely worth the $30 price per ticket. If you're even remotely a Sufjan fan and they're coming through your town I wholeheartedly recommend it.
For more info go to:
www.asthmatickitty.com
BTW, I was going to buy a t-shirt but they only offered one Sufjan t-shirt and it had a picture of a car and said "Ride the Hatch" below the car (referring to a lyric from "The Avalanche). Just a little too geeky and "in" for me so I passed on that, although I liked the illustration of the car.
bc
